A Single Hour
by wrldpossibility
Summary: Bella does not jump off the cliff. As may have been inevitable, Edward comes back to Forks on his own accord. What will he find when he gets there?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This fic will explore what I'd like to think happened had Bella not jumped off the cliff, setting all the other events in New Moon into motion. Set sometime just before spring break; canon until approximately Chapter 15 of New Moon. This is not my first fic by any means, but it's my first Twilight fic.

_"Right and wrong have ceased to mean much to me; I was coming back anyway…I was already past trying to live through one week at a time, or even one day. I was fighting to make it through a single hour. It was only a matter of time--and not much of it--before I showed up at your window and begged you to take me back."_ --New Moon

**Prologue**

_Tick..._

As he listens, the minute hand shutters for the most miniscule of instants, then clicks into its new position.

_Tock._

_Tick._

He closes his eyes, but what difference does it make? Light, darkness, its all the same to the immortal.

_Tock._

He shifts in the small space he's called home for days now, feeling neglected tendons and muscles slide under the surface of his rock hard skin.

_Tick._

He clenches his teeth.

_Tock._

There's a point when you know you're not going to make it. When the tightrope becomes too narrow, your balance too precarious. The distance too long, the height too vast. And when you reach that point--when Ihe/I does, in the claustrophobic attic space overlooking some loud city or another in the heart of South America--when the fight to survive the passage of weeks have accelerated to days and then hours and then minutes, why continue the struggle? Why not surrender with a voluntary relaxing of muscle and mind power, face the inevitable, and simply…

fall?

**Chapter 1**

Time.

For several months now, it's gone by for Bella in leaps and starts, like a heart stuttering. At home, alone, at school, asleep…it stalls. With Jacob, it races forward again like a sprinter from the block, in a burst of speed that takes her breath away.

The whole experience leaves her slightly dizzy.

But not…unhappy. Not when she's with Jake, and she receives her usual electric jolt of new life. Of course, that's less and less often these days, as his pack demands his attention and loyalty with increasing frequency, leaving her with her own thoughts, or else her job at Newton's, or sometimes at Emily's, awaiting the wolves' return.

But even so, there's enough of the old times--the old _them_--to keep her on life support. She's undeniably grateful.

Today, they're curled up together on Billy's sagging couch, her calculus textbook spread open over her knees, Jake's heavy head on her shoulder. His eyes are closed, but she knows he's awake. For one thing, he's toying idly with the string of her hoodie, running the thread up and down through his fingers.

"If you're so bored, you could start your lit essay so I can read it."

He chuckles, the sound reverberating from deep in his chest. "I think I'm on a bit of sabbatical from school these days."

She frowns. Partially because it's not fair.

She shifts her weight on the couch as she snaps her book closed, under the pretense of freeing herself from his crushing weight. In truth, her dramatic groan is a farce; she doesn't mind.

Which is exactly why she needs to put a few inches between them.

Jake acquiesces with a grunt of his own, unfolding his long limbs to stand before holding one hand out for her. She takes it, allowing his fingers to briefly curl around her own. They're warm enough to set her palm to tingling.

"Time to go already?" he complains.

Bella's gathering her stuff into her backpack. "Charlie," she explains with a shrug. "He'll be home in half an hour or so."

The shadows are lengthening across Jake's tiny living room, and he seems to concede to this point if not to her own explanation. "I'll drive you home."

She waits while he grabs a sandwich from the fridge then follows as he trots through the front door without bothering with shoes, or for that matter, a shirt. She raises one eyebrow.

"What? It's just easier. I'm not exactly planning to _hitchhike _back to La Push."

She rolls her eyes.

*****

He'd booked the flight from Rio to Seattle before he could talk himself out of it.

It's wrong; Edward knows this. But right and wrong have ceased to matter much, as he should have suspected all along, given his spectacular streak of egocentricity. _Self-preservation won out, what a shocker_. Now, as the shuttle plane idles to a stop on the narrow tarmac of the Port Angeles airport, he thinks back to that moment last spring, when he'd actually plotted how to destroy himself had he arrived at the dance studio too late. He considers darkly whether all his planning had actually been moot. At the end of the day--week, millennia, whatever--was he even capable of finishing himself off? He, who lacks even the will power to deny himself now what he wants?

_What he needs,_ he corrects himself grudgingly.

Because it hardly feels like a choice, this gravitational pull back the Forks.

Back to Bella.

*****

It's starting to rain, but the truck cab is warm, Jacob is warm, and Bella is warm, her jacket-covered arm and shoulder pressed to his bare one. He's regaling her with some tale of Paul and Sam the previous day on patrol, some mishap to do with a skunk, and his laugh is loud; she can feel the vibration of his abdominal muscles as he gaffaws. _The boy is ripped_. The realization never ceases to amaze her; it's as though every day, he's bigger. Stronger. Older. As though she can never quite get a pulse on precisely who he is…what he is…to her.

A quandary which has nothing to do with shape shifting, of course.

She knows this, when she slips and actually thinks about it. When she thinks about what Jacob has come to mean to her, instead of just contenting herself with floating along in his ever-increasing wake, happy just to keep her head above water.

He's not a floatation device. He deserves better than 'lifesaver' status. She knows _this_, as well.

Still, by the time he pulls her truck into her driveway, the rain is coming down in sheets, and she doesn't want to get out. Their breath is starting to fog the glass and for a long moment, she listens to the click-click-click of the windshield wipers; in a rare turn of events, Jacob has fallen silent beside her as well.

It's short lasted. Abruptly, he turns to face her; he's close enough that she can feel the trace of his breath on her cheeks as he exhales. "Bella--"

A sudden instinct has her cutting him off, even as she leans forward earnestly. "Listen, Jake--"

She has no idea what she was going to say, but abruptly, it doesn't matter; they both blink as the glare of headlights cut across the early evening gloom of the truck cab. Bella raises one hand to shield her eyes as the cruiser pulls in behind them.

Jake is out of the truck cab in a flash. "Hey, Charlie."

Bella watches as her father blinks back at him in surprise, but he's chuckling. "Ever heard of a coat, kid?"

*****

Edward's phone beeps impatiently at him the moment he turns it on outside the sole terminal of the Port Angeles airport. The sound is nearly a foreign one; until today, his family has fully respected his desire for isolation. He dials his voice mail while scoping out the near-empty long term parking lot for a decent ride, then accesses the single message. He's not surprised to see it's from Alice.

She doesn't waste time on preliminaries. Her waif-like voice fills his ear, nearly breathless with poorly contained excitement.

_Edward, does this mean what I think it means?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

With a terse sigh, Edward returns the call. "Stay out of this, Alice."

He's in no mood to play games, even with his favorite sister. The red-eye--he laughs darkly at the term--from Rio had been long, the shuttle from Seattle tedious. It's near-dawn, and according to the local weather report, the sun plans to make a rare cameo by mid-morning.

Still, it's not that he hadn't thought of picking Alice's brain on the matter. He cannot deny that a brief glimpse at whatever future events his decision to return might set into motion would have been quite welcome. But in the end, he had decided that if he went into this the old fashioned way--blind--there was a better chance that he'd also go into it _slowly_. Carefully.

On the other end of the connection, Alice's tone is sulky. "As if I have a choice in the matter."

Edward comes to an abrupt halt mid-step. "What do you mean?"

She hesitates for only a fraction of a second, but to Edward, it feels like a full minute has passed before she admits, "I can't always see her." The horrified silence on his end must have been deafening, because she makes quick work of explaining herself. "She's still _there_, Edward, in the long-term future. And she's not fuzzy, like she would appear if she's undecided about something. She's just…_absent_ for short periods of time, after which she reappears."

His voice is an icy growl as his mind conjures the unsettling image of a cork bobbing on a rough body of water, dipping under waves before resurfacing. No, not a cork. _Bella_. He pushes the thought away forcefully. _"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"_

Now that his terror has given way to anger, Alice sounds less wary and more perturbed. "I didn't _know_ this earlier. I was specifically told to keep my nose out of Bella's future, remember?"

He remembers. The threats he'd issued to his family upon the eve of his self-imposed exile had been specific enough: no one--not Alice, not Carlisle, not Esme, _no one_--was to set foot in Forks again. No one was to contact Bella for any reason. No one was to so much as think of her. This last line had been delivered specifically for Alice's benefit.

The thing is, he hadn't expected her to _listen._

*****

Memory is such a fickle thing.

Disloyal, too. Instead of fading with time, the memories in Bella's mind turn on her whenever her defenses are down, her back figuratively turned, such as when she's trying to remember an ingredient for dinner or she's staring into her closet, attempting to decide how many layers she'll need for the constant drizzle.

Or when she first wakes…always when she first wakes, and the boundary between sleeping and waking--eternity and mortality--are fuzziest, the thinnest thread of a line on a perpetually foggy horizon.

She guesses this only makes sense, seeing as her mind is, apparently, like a sieve. But Edw--_he_--had been wrong: the flawed nature of her human mind--the holes and cracks--do not serve to lose and squander memory; rather, they trap it. They provide it with the perfect sanctuary in which to worm and tangle.

_It will be as if I never existed._

A joke. (Not that she can find anything at all funny about it.)

Had he meant it as an act of mercy? Had he not realized, while so thoroughly ridding her room of mementos, that in fact all of _Forks_ served as a reminder…as proof…of his one-time presence in her life?

And he couldn't take Forks from her. Not even Charlie and his pleas for her happiness, or her mother and her promises of Florida sunshine could do that.

She dresses for school quickly--green top, jeans, Converse--then shrugs into her coat and pulls on gloves by the front door. It'll be hours before she can escape to La Push; time for yet another day on autopilot.

*****

Edward decides that for once, the sun is his ally. It's out in full measure today, forcing him to keep to the shadows when against all his better judgment, he longs to march directly into Forks High School and steal Bella out of it.

Instead, he traverses the woods at the far periphery of the school grounds, concealing himself in the shade of the fir trees. He's well within hearing range of the minds on the other side of the brick walls, and so he listens…for nothing.

Instead, he receives a predictable cacophony of thought. He weeds through the various voices, some louder than others, hunting for the familiar…for Jessica's perhaps, or Angela's. Maybe Mr. Varner's, or Eric's. Anyone who might be in Bella's immediate vicinity.

Alice is still leaving messages on his phone at regular intervals: _You want me to come out there? I could run recon essence…Right this minute, she's deciding on what to eat for lunch, clear as day…I'm her best friend, Edward, you owe me--_

Luckily for him, there's a solution to _this_ sort of head noise; he turns off the phone with a satisfactory click.

And then he settles in to listen, dropping in and out of conversations, musings, internal dialogues and personal pep talks. He winces at the volume--hundreds of students all clamoring for space in his head at once--absently rubbing his forehead with one hand as he searches, and searches, and searches. Nearly an hour goes by, and then, in one small corner of his mind, somewhere in the far northwest corridor of Building 5, there's silence. Perfect, absolute, impenetrable _silence._

He's found her.

He fans out, searching for someone nearby upon whose mind he can piggyback. Impossibly, no one in the vicinity is taking notice of her. A freshman walks by, consumed with the abysmal result of his latest algebra test. Angela and Ben are somewhere close, but as far as Edward can tell, currently have eyes only for each other. He follows the silence for several minutes, past the Biology lab and the cafeteria--she must be heading for English-- before, mercifully, another familiar mind grows louder in his head as its owner gradually approaches the object of his scrutinized concentration.

_Bella. Excellent. She'll know._ "Hey, Bella!"

Mike Newton calls her name from the end of the hallway, and Edward freezes in place, limbs suddenly locked in breathless anticipation.

_Is she deaf?_ "Bella!"

He's undeniably resentful that his first glimpse of Bella in five months is through the sullied filter of Mike Newton's thoughts, but he'll take it. At this point, he'd take anything. Still rooted in place in the shadow of the trees, he watches her retreating form--or rather, watches Mike watch her as he chases her down, a vantage point which sets Edward's teeth on edge. Her backpack is slung over one shoulder and her head is down, her eyes trained on her feet--a good thing, no doubt-- as she makes her way down the crowded corridor. She's wearing jeans and a green blouse he recognizes, and her hair is loose down her back, easily third quarters of an inch longer than when last he saw her. _When last he_ left _her,_ he corrects himself. One mahogany strand has fallen forward over her face, and as he watches, she reaches up absentmindedly to tuck it back behind her ear. When she finally glances up--toward Mike--she's worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Realizing that he'd been trying to get her attention, she blushes.

_God help me._ It's Edward's own mental dialogue that's slipped through conscious thought and past his lips, not Mike's or anyone else's.

She smiles slightly as Mike asks her something about their Biology homework, and that's all it takes for him to come completely undone. Edward barely feels the scrape of bark against his back as he slides down the trunk of the tree he'd been braced against to the wet ground, his arms hugging his torso tightly enough to crush a mortal man.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **Thanks to **domfangirl** for the beta. If you want to read Ch. 4 as well, it's posted at my LJ (). I always post a chapter ahead there. You'll need to introduce yourself and friend me to read. Thanks for your reviews and encouragement!

**Chapter 3**

It's a good thing that breathing is optional, because Edward realizes now that he had been wholly unprepared for this first (albeit second-hand) glimpse of Bella. He wants to cry out, but he doesn't. Instead, he clamps his jaw closed tightly, one fist pressed hard to his mouth. Anyone else would have tasted the tang of blood. He wants to weep, but he can't. He settles for silently shaking; the leaves on the branches above him quiver and fall in a silent shower.

In the hallway--and in his mind's eye--Bella is still blushing, and in his thoughts, Mike is noticing. "You're in a good mood today," he ventures, his tone oddly buoyed. To Edward's convenience, he mentally he rounds out this analysis. _She's like, almost 90%_ here _today_. He and Edward both watch as she trips over her feet as she resumes walking. _Or at least 80%._

If Edward hadn't known better, he'd say Mike sounds surprised. Why? Is a good mood an anomaly for Bella these days? He can't decide whether that possibility lifts or deflates his own disposition, and immediately hates himself for it.

Mike hastens to keep up, and he and Bella walk in stride for the length of the hallway. From the unpleasant vantage of Mike's point of view, Edward takes in everything he's been missing for the past interminable months…the tone of her skin--ivory over pale pink--the warmth of her eyes, the hesitant curve of her lips in a smile. He's never been so grateful for the way the Newton kid looks at her like…well, like she's something to eat, actually.

Unbidden, his mouth waters.

And his throat tightens with a phantom sob. It occurs to him suddenly why this simple exchange has been so hard to watch: _Bella's human_. And she's acting every bit as human as Edward had told her she would. Adapting. Healing.

Forgetting.

While all the while, he'd been able to do little more than curl up in a ball.

He'd never known self-fulfilling prophecies could feel so cruel.

*****

The day is just as long as she had anticipated it would be, just as long as every day before it had been, but it's ok now, because she has something at the end of it that she can grasp onto like the lifeline it is. He'll be there, after the last bell. He'll be out front of her house, waiting.

He doesn't let her down. (Does he ever?)

When she emerges from gym class to more unseasonable sunlight, she crosses the parking lot to her truck at a speed walk. Five minutes later, she's pulling into her driveway, and he's grinning at her before she can even cut the engine, the red bike idling underneath him.

"Hey."

"_Heeeey_, Bells." He draws out the greeting in one long note, his deep voice channeling the hum of the bike. Grabbing her backpack and locking her truck, she climbs on behind him. He's grown too tall for her to rest her chin on his shoulder like she once did, so she settles for wrapping her arms around his waist. Her thighs grip the metal of the bike, and then they're in motion, the tires skidding slightly over the perpetually wet asphalt.

*****

Something's wrong.

He's missed something while killing time in the shaded outskirts of the school grounds. He'd had a plan, which was, in a nutshell, to keep his distance…for now. Said plan was clearly backfiring now. He'd afforded her a decent head start--too decent, it turns out--to get out of class, get to her truck, and drive home. The only trouble is…she's not here.

Her truck is, but he's been staring at her bedroom window from the edge of the forest for half an hour now, and no doubt about it: no one is home. No Bella…and no way to track her.

He's having Port Angeles flashbacks.

Perhaps he missed something at school…a conversation, a clue. Perhaps she's at Angela's or Jessica's, though the latter seems unlikely, considering how harsh Jessica's thoughts had been toward Bella throughout the day. His jaw clenches.

He could make the rounds by foot, listening in at various houses until he's found her--he's been avoiding any other means of transportation; the last thing he needs is for someone to spot his Volvo in Forks and start gossiping--but in light of his other, easier, option, it seems tedious. He dials Alice's number.

"Ok," he tells her when she picks up before the first ring has sounded. "I give in."

Her delighted voice trills in his ear. "I can visit?"

"No, you can track. Specifically, you can tell me where she is right now...or five seconds from now, or whatever works for you."

There's a long pause. "You've already lost her?"

"I never had--never mind. Where is she?"

Another pause. Edward hears his own teeth grind together as he prompts her again in a low growl. "_Al_-ice?"

When Alice finally answers, her voice is soft. Strangely hollow. "I…don't know."

She sounds as confused as he feels. "How can you not--"

"I don't _know_!" she repeats, her voice losing its melodic chime in her distress. "It's like I said before: every so often--well, quite often--she just disappears, like she's fallen off a page or…dropped off my radar."

A sense of dread--old and familiar--rises in his gut and turns his stomach. Superhuman strength and speed, the most perfect predator on earth, and it's not enough--has never _been_ enough--to keep her safe. And safe from what? Herself? Not last time…and certainly not this time.

His own long-ago observation echoes in his mind. _A magnet for danger, remember?_

"Edward, she'll be _back_."

He can hear the now false cheer in his sister's tone, and wants none of it. He issues his next words in sharp, staccato bites. "But the question is Alice, where _is_ she while she's gone?"

*****

The bikes thunder down the highway neck-and-neck; out of the corner of her eye, Bella can see the blue of the Pacific on one side and the gleam of Jake's left-side cylinder on the other. Generally though, she's learned to keep her eyes on the road.

And her mind attuned to the ever-appealing auditory illusions.

_What is it exactly, Bella, that you think you're trying to prove with this stunt? Pushing 45 on a hairpin turn? Slow. Down._

She beams.

Riding together today had been her idea. After returning to Billy's garage for Bella's bike and two pairs of gloves (it's freezing adjacent to the ocean at this time of year, or really, _any_ time of year on the Olympic Peninsula) they'd driven through the La Push town limits at a crawl then let loose. First Beach had passed in a blur, and now, at least ten miles later, Bella's eyes are watering severely enough to impede her steering ability, upping the danger quotient a bit more than even she would like.

She signals Jake to pull over at the next turn-out, and his brake lights flash in the muted light of the late afternoon. She slows as well, then pulls up behind him at a scenic vista overlooking the ocean. Jake flips his kickstand, and then hers, and sits down at the very edge of the turn-out. His long legs swing over the cliff side.

Bella joins him, albeit a bit more carefully.

She pulls her knees up to her chest, hugging herself. She almost asks Jake if he's cold, then thinks better of it. Even so, his sweatshirt is off his torso and slipped over her own head before she can blink.

"Better?"

She smiles.

"So." Jake idly tugs a narrow shoot of grass out of the earth and bends it around one finger. "Spring Break coming up. Are you going to see your mom or anything?"

She frowns. "I hadn't really thought about it."

"Yeah, I guess the last time you were there things didn't go so well." He looks pointedly at her leg.

Bella stares out at the ocean. The wind is picking up; she can see the foamy specks of white caps forming. Jake looks up from the grass to her face, and they speak simultaneously. "I know you don't like to talk about it--"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Jacob looks as though he's considering disregarding this fact, then thinks better of it; his intake of breath cuts off abruptly then morphs into a sigh. "Yeah, ok."

Almost immediately though, he inhales bracingly again. "But you know things are different now, right?" One big hand covers hers. She instantly stills as the heat of it penetrates her jeans to warm her knee and thigh. "You don't have to go anywhere on your break; in fact, I'd love it if you stayed right here…always. You know that, right?"

She closes her eyes, but not to shut out the dizzying drop to the water below.

This--_this Jacob_--is danger of the greatest kind. She wonders where her protective angel has retreated to in her true hour of need.

"You don't have to be hurt like that ever again, Bella."

She nods slowly, because essentially, he's right: her happiness_ is_ in _his_ hands…in his ability to be the antidote to her despair. And dependent upon _her_ ability to block out all the rest.

But what he doesn't understand--what he can never understand--is that her feelings for Edward, present or not, are bigger than both of them. Bigger, it seems to Bella, than the entire ocean before them.

Which, miserably, leaves her unable to do anything but tread water.

*****

Edward stands in the Swan driveway and waits. He's tempted to shimmy up the outside wall to her window and wait in the comfort of her room, but he can't bring himself to breach his self-imposed boundaries quite that blatantly.

Surely she'll be home before Charlie, home in time to start dinner and complete her homework. Surely there will be an explanation to all of this. And if not? If she's somehow found her way toward some and unforeseeable danger?

Well then the upshot is that he's found his excuse to stay. He's found his reason to turn her life upside down once more.

_She needs him._ And God knows he needs her, and so he's decided: when she gets back from wherever she's been, he'll be the first thing she sees.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

It's twilight when he hears the rumble of a motor in the distance. It's coming closer, narrowing in on the general direction of the Swan house in an increasing hum turned roar, but he's not paying it any attention, because why would he? He can easily decipher the subtle whine of a single cylinder intertwining with the pitch of the accelerator, and he knows the noise belongs to a motorbike. And why would Bella be returning home on a motorbike?

The idea is laughable.

And then it rounds the corner, inky black in the low light of the evening, and his heart, had it been beating, would have stopped as swiftly as the old Harley Sprint that now screeches to a halt in the driveway. Because a boy—and not just any boy—is cutting the engine and Bella is sliding off the back of the bike as naturally as though she did this every day.

Edward watches as she automatically lifts one hand to her head to smooth the tangle of her hair then turns back toward her companion—he can't make himself form the name on his tongue—with a laugh. _Why is she laughing? The kid just practically dumped her at her doorstep from the back of a deathtrap._ Edward stares, taking in much more than he wishes he would: the boy is grinning back at her, and thinking—thinking things that hit Edward like a sucker punch. His thoughts are in no way vile but certainly not _pure_; they're strong and sure and saturate his every word to Bella in a caress. They echo painfully in Edward's head and instinctively, he fights back with his mind as though he's been physically assaulted, as if he can actually force the intensity of these feelings back, back, back into that black mind they came from.

_Jacob_ Black's.

Bella's smile is for him—Jacob—and her hand is on his arm as though this too happens every day. She's talking, answering some question about Charlie and his work schedule—_surely Charlie does not approve of this mode of transportation then?_—and it's not until she turns, peeling off a pair of oversized gloves as she does so, that she finally _sees_, and then her entire body tightens with a sharp, short jolt of…

what? Shock? Pain?

Joy?

Her mouth opens with a startled gasp, and then closes as the corner of her lips turn upward in a bewildering show of what is almost wonder but not quite happiness. Almost…misery.

"Oh, wow," she whispers.

Jacob doesn't hear her. He's staring in the same direction, and somewhat like Bella, his entire body is rigid. But unlike Bella, the taut muscles of his torso are nearly _rippling_ with intensity as his eyes lock with Edward's. A shimmer of aggression emits from him as he sniffs the air and recoils. Edward draws a deep breath of his own and nearly staggers backward as an unexpected scent hits _his _nostrils in turn.

_Werewolf._

Could it be…that the Black kid…has _transformed_? Amazing.

Horrifying.

*****

It's hands-down the best hallucination she's had yet.

For one thing, it's in 3-D. It truly feels like Edward is _here_ in her driveway, three feet from her, his eyes dark and his face tight with anxiety. He hasn't spoken—he usually speaks—but even without the aid of his voice, he's never felt this _real_ to her since the previous September.

She's so caught up in her delusion that she fails to see the fury on Jacob's face until he's grabbing her arm roughly, pulling her against him. He literally growls, low in his chest, and she finally tears her eyes from the image of Edward to look at him in alarm. "Jake?"

_"Vampire_." The single word is a harsh curse; he spits it as though it's foul in his mouth, and she stares at him in confusion. Surely Jacob doesn't see Edward too?

But his face has darkened; he's shaking. He's staring at the ghost of Edward and…impossibly, the Edward ghost is staring back at him as if…as if he can see him, too. As if they're the only two people in the driveway, actually. "No, Jake," she breathes. "It's just…"

She trails off helplessly, because what can she say? _It's just pretend? It's just in my imagination?_ But if that is so, how is it in Jacob's imagination as well?

It seems to take a long, long time for the truth to sink in. It chips at her brain like slowly cracking ice across a deeply frozen surface, one powerful gouge followed by another. She begins to shake as well, her legs suddenly losing all ability to hold her, and she feels Jake's arm catch and tighten around her waist. Vying emotions sluice through her now liquid body like an assault: disbelief, chased by elation, chased again by a surprisingly swift kick of hope. _Dangerous hope._ Finally, self preservation, an instinct Edward once told her she lacked, floods her being, and she says the first thing to come to mind.

"Don't hurt me," she whispers.

*****

_Don't…what?_ When Edward finds his voice, it's rough with terror and despair even as he emulates her near-inaudible tone. "I'd never," he breathes. _She knows he'd never._

But that isn't, apparently, what she'd meant, because as he watches, she takes a hesitant step forward. The action seems to loosen Jacob's tongue and his voice rumbles with unsuppressed challenge. "He won't, Bella. I won't let him!"

But she's shaking her head, then attempting to shake his arm off of her. He does not concede to her; his arm stays stubbornly in place. He's still visibly trembling, his mind a churning vortex of inexpressible anger and perceived threat, and his tenuous grip on control momentarily consumes Edward. _Get away from her!_ he wants to shout. _Bella, he's dangerous_! But impossibly, he doesn't. Instead, he stands mute, his usual authority inexplicably absent. He's startled to realize that sometime in the last long minute, he's raised his arms unconsciously, palms up.

_Easy. Eeeeeasy_. Jacob continues to quiver with rage.

The kid might as well have a gun pressed to Bella's head.

*****

_Edward. Here. Edward, Edward, Edward._ Bella repeats the word like a mantra in her head, but if she's hoping it will become more real with repetition, she's obviously in for disappointment. She settles for digging her fingernails forcefully into the heels of her palms, clenched into fists by her sides. The sharp prick of pain may be the only thing keeping her standing.

A single question screams at her from the lone segment of her brain not consumed with ensuring her she's not dreaming: _why? Why is he back, when he doesn't care? Why does he bother, if she doesn't matter?_

"Bella." His voice is the same: honeyed velvet, the smoothest satin even as it cracks with suppressed emotion. The sound is akin to the tinkling of crystal or the shattering of thinnest glass.

He reaches for her. Two, maybe three steps, and she'd be within his grasp. Her hand would find his, and she knows exactly how it would feel: cool, hard, and strong, her fingers molding to the stone form of his like flesh over bone.

But she can't.

She stands frozen, because to touch him would be to strip herself of every defense she's built up in his absence. It would be to return to her previously petrified state when—inevitably—he left her again. If there's one thing she knows, it's that he will, without doubt, _be the death of her_.

But no. Scratch that. They _both _will. Because as she retreats with the slightest of steps, she feels Jacob's solid bulk at her back, and to touch ihim/i is to melt like butter in a pan. Malleable. Defenseless.

Panic creeps under her skin and sends her pulse into a sprint. Protected, hunted, sought…it doesn't matter.

Either way, she's the prey.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Bella's breath comes in short, audible gasps. Less than a foot from her, Edward stands tensely, as if waiting for some cue she's not privy to. Her last—her only—words are ringing in her ears: _Don't hurt me._ They echo in her mind as a silent plea…_don't do this, don't toy with me, don't make me all start over. But don't…go._ She doesn't know whether she's addressing _him_ or simply herself.

"Do you want me to leave?" Edward entreats, but his face remains a smooth plane of defiance and she sees no chink in his armor. His body is posed to strike at the slightest hint of provocation; _leaving_ is quite obviously his absolute last choice for a course of action.

She's startled to hear herself answer him. She wouldn't have thought she had this much presence of mind. "Why are you here?" she whispers. "What's happened? Who is it?" Because this is obviously the only explanation; surely some type of tragedy is the only thing that could have driven him here.

He looks taken aback. For the briefest of moments, his stony expression falters. "No one," he answers awkwardly. "Nothing. I…" He trails off.

Behind her, Jacob takes advantage of Edward's seeming lack of direction. "Then I guess you can go now." Bella turns her head sharply toward him, startled. If it wasn't for the heat radiating from him in waves, she would have forgotten he was there.

Edward blatantly ignores him, but Jake's interjection seems to have clarified his focus. He continues to stare only at Bella, but there's a new urgency in his tone. He takes another step toward her. "I couldn't do this another day longer," he tells her in an undertone she'd associate with a confessional. "Not even a single hour more."

These words are still registering in Bella's mind when two things happen at once. Behind her, she feels the cadence of Jacob's shaking increase sharply; he shudders violently and then growls. Ahead of her, past Edward toward the street, she sees the beam of a pair of headlights flickering through the trees. Before she can process either one, Jacob is convulsing around her, his arm still locked around her waist, and Edward is yelling. She turns in the circle of Jacob's arms to see him cast her a single look of plaintive apology before ripping himself away from her roughly and leaping toward the tree line. He's had enough: she catches sight of only his lean form lounging, then his canine outline before he's disappeared from view.

When she pivots back toward Edward, it's to see her father's cruiser rolling into the driveway, stopping just short of his heels. Charlie brakes with greater emphasis than necessary, and Bella steps back as gravel flies up from underneath his tires. The car door opens and then slams forcefully.

"What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

Edward's still obviously reeling from Jacob's unorthodox exit. The impeccable manners that usually come second nature sound stiff and stilted in the night air. "Chief Swan."

Charlie doesn't return the greeting. "This machine _yours?"_

Both Edward and Bella simultaneously look up the driveway to where he's pointing. The Sprint is still standing in plain view, its shiny paint job now gleaming in the headlights of the cruiser. _Oh no. No, no, no._ Bella looks to Edward with wide, beseeching eyes. _Just for once, please read my mind. Please. Please._

Edward doesn't miss a beat. "Yes, sir."

Charlie's tone is like ice as he approaches the bike in three short strides, examines it, exhales sharply, then returns to where Edward is standing. To Bella's horror, his right hand is resting on his service revolver on his hip. He speaks deliberately, as though addressing someone who might need every word repeated. "Get. It off. My property. And do not. Come. Back."

For the briefest moment, Edward stands stock still.

"_Do you hear me_?" Charlie yells. _"I never—ever—want to see you here again."_

Bella tries to protest, but the words seem to deflate before they can leave her mouth, like air from a leaky balloon. "Dad," she manages, and is dismayed to realize she's speaking in a whisper, despite the full breath of air she's drawn into her lungs.

Charlie has no such problem; his voice amplifies across the driveway. "Not now, Bella. Not a word!"

Slowly…very slowly…Edward closes the distance to the motorbike and swings one leg gracefully over the seat. When the Sprint revs to life, the sound is deafening to Bella's ears. He looks at her once—she tries to make it count, conveying apology and gratitude and confusion all in one split second glance—and then he's peeling out over the gravel and executing a perfect U-turn onto the pavement.

*****

The kitchen is unnaturally silent.

Bella turns on the light, takes off her coat, and steps out of her boots. Behind her, she hears the _clunk_ of Charlie's service belt hitting the entry table, then the softer sound of his heavy jacket falling on top of it. For lack of anything else to do with herself, she opens the fridge door and stares inside, looking for the ingredients for dinner.

She feels, rather than hears, Charlie settle with his back to the kitchen table and regard her. When she turns, his arms are crossed over his chest. "How long has _that_ been going on?"

"What?"

"The Cullen kid. Back. How long?"

She blinks. As if she'd have been able to hide such a thing from him. "This is the first I've seen him." She turns her back again, grabbing thawed ground round off the bottom shelf of the fridge and setting it carefully on the counter. "When Jake brought me home, he was here. Waiting."

All true. So why does it feel…incomplete?

Charlie evidently agrees with this assessment. "Thought his family had moved on. Forks wasn't good enough for them." Despite digging for hamburger fixings in the crisper, Bella could still feel his eyes on her. "So what does he want?"

When she turns back, she knows he can see the utter defeat on her face. She's always been an open book, after all. "I have no idea, Dad. Can we just not talk about it?"

A flicker of sympathy crosses his face before blossoming into full-blown concern. It's worse than the inquisition. "Sure. Of course. You…want me to make dinner or something? Or we could just order a pizza."

"No, I got it." She needs to keep busy. Needs to use her hands and her brain for something routine. Something comforting in its familiarity.

He concedes quickly. "I'll just be in the den, then, catching the last few minutes of the game." She hears him sigh as he retreats. "But Bells?"

"Yeah, Dad."

"I wasn't kidding. I don't want that boy anywhere near here. Ever. Got that? You tell him, if you see him again. In fact, scratch that…I don't _want_ you seeing him again. So if you do, you tell _me_, alright?"

She has nothing left. No anger, no fear, no emotional reserve at all with which to mount an argument. "Yeah, Dad," she repeats.

*****

_He could very well be upstairs waiting for her._

The truth of this insight hits her midway through dinner, and the impact of it causes her to choke on one of the few bites she's managed to eat of her burger. It's been so long since…well, since her room hasn't been solely her own…that the distinct possibility that Edward had decided to make himself at home there until her arrival had only just occurred to her.

"You ok?"

She reaches for her glass, coughing, swigging water down to both open her airway and buy herself some time before answering. Wouldn't it be just like her to drop dead from a mismanaged bite of hamburger inow/i? She frowns at her own idiocy. "Fine. Just…" She can't think of anything to say, and anyway, she still can't quite speak comfortably. "Long day," she finishes lamely. "I think I'll go upstairs, get started on homework."

"Hang out with me for a bit."

She sets her water glass down slowly. "The game must be over," she observes with an attempt at a smile, but her sarcasm sounds just as lame as her excuses. Charlie, however, seems undeterred, having evidently decided some form of _parenting_ is in order.

"Nah, seventh inning. But we can watch together. Or we can watch whatever you want. I'll make popcorn."

*****

It's quite possibly the longest evening of her life.

After the game, Charlie insists on changing the channel to some Disney show Bella liked when she was twelve, and then to a rerun of _Cheers_. Normally, she'd make a joke about Forks' absence of cable providers then make her exit, but the truth is, the longer she stays downstairs, the more she's losing her nerve.

_What if Edward_ is _waiting for her in her room_? What then?

The possibility fills her with terror—and elation—and with the elation comes hope. And hope is the scariest thing of all. She cannot—will not—hope.

Because that hole where her heart used to be? It's nearly, against all impossible odds, knitted. Of course, she's no idealist…she's not even a romantic anymore: she knows she'll always be hollow, that the best she can do is forget for short spurts of time…hours with Jacob, busy days, things like that. She knows the _emptiness _will remain. But at least the wound is no longer gaping. Hemorrhaging.

She'd like to keep it that way.

Another hour ticks by, and by the time the latest sitcom's credits roll across the screen of their ancient TV, Bella's stomach is tied in knots. She can barely sit still; her legs seem to bounce of their own accord whenever she tries to relax. The later the hour, the more terrified she becomes.

By ten pm, she gives up. When she stands slowly and stretches, Charlie barely glances over at her; he's found the recap of the game on ESPN and is nodding along with the announcer. Apparently, as far as the chief of police is concerned, time has already healed all wounds; three agonizing hours watching mindless drivel is all it takes to forget Edward Cullen is back in town.

If only it were that easy.

She carries their dishes into the kitchen and over to the sink. Mindlessly, she turns on the tap and watches the water pour over the popcorn bowls, drowning the last remnants of butter and salt. She fiddles for a bit with her backpack, making sure she has everything she'll need in the morning, then decides to toss in a Pop Tart for breakfast as well. She moves Charlie's jacket—still in a wet heap—to the coat rack, then looks around the kitchen.

Not much else to do.

With something almost like resignation, she hits the lights and makes her way down the hall. She takes the stairs slowly, and at the top, she pauses to draw in a deep, bracing breath. Her door, at the end of the upstairs hallway, is closed. Had she left it that way?

She spends another thirty seconds standing in the dark trying to remember, then gives herself a swift mental shake. There's nowhere to go but forward.

Two more steps, and she's at her door. This time, she doesn't allow herself to pause. _Just like ripping off a band-aid._ She turns the handle and swings the door open swiftly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title:** A Single Hour

**Chapter:** 6

**Author:** wrldpossibility

**Genre:** canon up to cliff dive in NM

**Summary:** Bella does not jump off the cliff. As may have been inevitable, Edward comes back to Forks on his own accord. What will he find when he gets there?  
**Author's Note:** Sorry about the long wait. We all know Bella's not getting any younger. ;) Much thanks to **domfangirl** for the betawork!  
**Disclaimer:** I own none of it. We all know who does. Summit. Er, I mean S. Meyer.

Chapter 6

He's a patient person, but this is getting ridiculous.

He's been waiting hours. Edward sits stock still in Bella's old rocking chair; he's never seen the benefits to be gleaned from pacing back and forth. Down the stairs and past the hallway, Charlie's thoughts are typically opaque, but there's a definite underlying theme: worry. Worry overlaid with fierce anger…toward Edward.

They're in the living room, Charlie in the oversized chair, Bella on the couch. He doesn't have to see them to know this: the steady beat of Charlie's heel on the floor as he taps his foot in tandem with the slight creak of the chair and Bella's intermittent sighs muffled into one of Renee's ancient throw pillows, all over the constant drone of the TV, sets the scene in his mind with crystal clarity.

What he doesn't know--cannot know--is what she's thinking.

Is she anxious? Her heart rate would indicate as much. Is she stalling of her own accord, hoping he'll leave? Does she suspect he's here at all?

He drops his head to his hands, groaning loudly, though he knows no one will hear. The wait is infuriating. He needs to know how much damage he's done. He needs to know precisely how important Jacob Black is, and most importantly, he needs to be in the same room as Bella after so many agonizing months.

He needs a verdict…_now_, which stirs a memory: _Bring on the shackles. I'm your prisoner._

If only. Because as long as the punishment isn't banishment, he can--and will--gratefully begin serving his sentence.

*****

Bella's hand slips on the doorknob as she turns it under her palm. As the door swings open, she swipes at the light switch on the wall blindly before taking so much as one foot inside; if he's here, she wants to see him clearly…not some half-materialized outline lurking in shadow. She's had enough of ghosts.

She hadn't anticipated the brightness of the bulb in her reading light. The glare momentarily blinds her, so that when her eyes do sweep the room and lock on his--deep, liquid amber--he appears encompassed in an otherworldly glow.

So much for keeping it real.

She freezes on the spot, staring at him in utter disbelief while struggling to affect a more eloquent response. Even with him so tangibly _here_, a matter of feet from her, she still cannot convince her brain that he's real. She supposes she should be grateful he'd positioned himself directly in her line of sight; no stealth moves, no drawn out tension, no suspense.

Perhaps the problem is that she'd never permitted herself to imagine this moment. In all her efforts to Ideflect/I, she'd never once dreamed, so how was she to know what to do with an actual Edward standing by her bed?

It was an impossibility, and now that she's confronted with it as reality, she has absolutely no idea what to do with it. Almost instantly, she feels a broadening numbness begin at her feet and work its way up in a slow, all-encompassing sweep until she would have sworn she felt nothing from the neck down. Instinctively, she crosses her arms in front of her chest.

All she can think to do is shield herself.

*****

She's standing very still at the far end of the room. The distance--indicative of Bella's caution--pains him. How many times had he cursed her lack of self-preservation? How many times had he been forced to physically brace himself against the scent of her as she flung herself recklessly into his arms?

What wouldn't he give to deserve an ounce of that blind trust now?

Because he doesn't, and it's gone. He knows this as surely as he knows he will never again leave Forks unless on her direct command. Bella watches him with a look that can only be described as wary, and somewhere deep and vital, he aches with the knowledge that their previous era of her inhibition, of her steadfast conviction that _he cannot hurt her_ is over.

On a practical level, the space between them should be a relief. The smell of her is a heady thing in this warm, upstairs bedroom, undiluted by night air or motorcycle exhaust or…werewolves. Especially given his lack of acclimation. He draws a deep breath into his lungs, feeling the burn of her.

The self-flagellation feels better than he had expected, and he does it again. While he's drawing his third breath, she finds her voice.

"I almost had myself convinced I'd imagined you," she says, then pauses, and he watches a slight, confused smile play briefly across her lips. He has just enough time to wonder if he's missing out on some inside joke, and then it's gone. "Earlier," she adds, as though he need clarification. "In the driveway."

"If that's the case, I'm relieved to know that _I_ then imagined _you_ appearing on the back of a motorcycle driven by a werewolf." He tries to return the smile but knows it's come out a bit twisted when her pale brow furrows. He experiments with a single step toward her.

She stands her ground.

He takes a second step, hands slightly outstretched, moving with a deliberate care that he'd never considered to be necessary before. "Bella, I've made such a mistake."

*****

She continues to stare at him, almost squinting really, because it takes all her concentration to make any sense of these words. He seems to appear much further away than he really is, as if she's looking at him from the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. It's a feeling she's experienced at least once before, standing out in the drizzle on the path in the woods directly behind the house. His words--her perspective--they'd both been equally garbled then.

"…the biggest mistake of my…existence."

"Life." It's a reflex reaction; she startles at the sound of her own voice carrying across the distance.

"What?"

"Of your life. Say life." No matter what's happened, no matter how he feels about her, she cannot abide his tendency to make what he is--what he's capable of offering--something…_other_.

From so, so far away, he frowns. "It's only a life when you're in it."

Again with the mixed up words. She's becoming dizzy. "If you didn't want me then, I don't know why you would now."

"But I _did_ want you then." His voice is caught impossibly between a plea and a growl; it sends an involuntary shiver up her spine.

_No._ She shakes her head swiftly, but it does nothing to dispel these words, nor unscramble them in the tumbler of her brain. If anything, she feels even more unstable on her feet. Because he _didn't _want her. He couldn't have, if he'd disappeared through the trees and not come back. And that's exactly what he'd done.

"Bella, I never should have left. I never wanted to, I--"

She squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for the vertigo to claim her. _Wishing_ it would. She's reminded suddenly of her last childhood summer in Forks, caught in an undertow at First Beach. She had felt battered, then. Disoriented. Swept up and down and side to side between equally powerful currents until one too many dashes of saltwater to her face had submerged her.

If her memory serves, it had been Billy Black's hand that had pulled her swiftly back out. But she had been smaller then. Lighter.

She had bounced back easily. Now, she feels one hundred years old and heavy as a stone. Edward's stopped talking, silenced by…what? Confusion at her expression? Concern for her sanity? Of course, he _should _be concerned. For a long moment, she stares down at the floorboards, concentrating on the sounds of her breathing while he waits.

When she looks back up, her heart rate instantly spikes again; in the last few seconds, he'd soundlessly closed the distance between them. His breath is cold on the hollow of her throat when he speaks.

"I love you," he says.

The vertigo returns with a vengeance as her head spins. She has no defense for this. All the armor in the world would not hold a candle to those words, that voice, that breath. And yet…_pain_. She remembers the pain…hours and days and months of it. And for the first time since she'd entered the room, she takes a step backward.

"I'm…not…good enough…Edward." What she means is…_I'm not strong enough_, but her words have become as scrambled as his.

A look crosses his face that she cannot interpret--it's like a man burning--and then he's shed the remainder of his reservation. He's reaching for her in an instant, one arm firm against her back to steady her as his sudden advance sends her stumbling, the other at the nape of her neck, then at her chin, lifting her face to his. His forehead comes to rest against hers, and then his mouth is brushing her jaw line.

He pauses for the briefest of moments while she feels the last of her resistance splinter and break within her, and then she's defenseless and crying and kissing him, and swallowing the pain like shards of glass, and wondering whether this is how _he_ feels, all the time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Title:** A Single Hour  
**Author:** wrldpossibility  
**Fandom:** Twilight  
**Genre:** Canon until Bella's cliff dive in New Moon  
**Chapter:** 7/8  
**Characters:** Bella, Jacob, Edward, ensemble  
**Word Count:** 1300  
**Summary:** Bella does not jump off the cliff. As may have been inevitable, Edward comes back to Forks on his own accord. What will he find when he gets there?  
**Author's Note:** In this chapter, I play around with the concept of Bella's 'epiphany' and tweak a few lines from NM. I also take a few lines from the movie. You'll know them when you see them. Thanks as always to **domfangirl **for the read-through. Any mistakes are all mine.

Chapter 7

When he finally pulls back from her, it's with a resistance that reminds her disconcertingly of flesh tearing from bone…painful. Unnatural. Bella can both hear and feel Edward's groan reverberating against her palm pressed to his chest.

He leans his forehead against hers again, and she feels his breath cool and sweet in her face. He must be as unstable on his feet as she feels, because he's forgetting his own strength; if her bedroom wall hadn't been at her back, his weight against her would have sent her stumbling again.

"Am I too late?" he asks.

She can't think with him this close. She never could. "What?" she asks blankly, then immediately bites her lip. _So slow. So stupid._

But Edward's hands are cradling the back of her head as though to brace her to him. His eyes are closed. Tightly. "Answer me this," he says. "What is Jacob Black to you?"

His hands, cold on the nape of her neck, tremble slightly with the effort of remaining feather light on her skin. Her head is swimming with the scent of him. "Jacob is…good…to me. Good _for_ me." It seems this is an important distinction. She's suddenly reminded of her most recent nightmare, of darkness and panic and then Charlie brushing the hair from her eyes. "And someone told me recently that I need to learn to love what's good for me."

Edward seems to be holding his breath. There's a stillness in the room that feels forced. "And have you managed that?"

She tries to consider it. She lets her mind fill with Jacob…warm, sunny Jacob. She imagines him here, heating her chilled skin. Even confident in the knowledge that Edward cannot read her thoughts, it feels like a betrayal.

And that tells her all she needs to know.

His eyes are now open, watching her face for clues. "I think I_ could_," she says carefully. "In time. If you had stayed gone."

"Then I _should_ have stayed gone."

His words have bite, meant, no doubt, to self-inflict, but Bella barely feels the residual sting. Instead, she releases a quick breath of amazement. _Because she thinks she may have just had an epiphany. _

"It wouldn't have mattered," she hears herself tell him, and immediately, these words feel _right_. Her mind flashes to the night in Port Angeles with Jessica, then to the long, lonely strip of dirt road with Jake, the feel of the motorcycle underneath her, the temperamental strength of the throttle in her hands. Edward's looking at her in wary confusion, but she presses on anyway. She can hear the amazement in her tone. "You could have stayed gone all you wanted; I was keeping you close all on my own."

"You do realize you're making absolutely no sense whatsoever."

A year ago--hell, a _minute_ ago--this type of comment from Edward would have had her reeling in self-doubt, but now? A new-found sense of empowerment is slowly filling her from the ground up. She's not sure where it's come from, but it feels marvelous.

Subconsciously or not, Ishe/I made the choice to keep Edward in her life when she could have let him go. _Edward does not call all the shots. He does not hold every card._

_Stupid and reckless. Sick and masochistic. _She's practically laughing now. "I brought you back here."

He smiles back at her tentatively. "Indeed you did."

She sobers. "After you…_left_…me."

The wary look returns. His answer is barely audible. "Yes."

"After you said you did…not…want…me."

"Bella--"

"You _lied."_

"Yes." He grasps hold of this explanation as though it's a reassurance, his hand reaching for her cheek as though to comfort. Impossibly, she finds herself turning her face away.

"Who _does_ that, Edward?"

*****

_He doesn't know_. And he certainly doesn't understand what's happening here. There are times--though not many--when Edward thinks Bella acts exactly her 18 years and no more…and he feels every one of his 109.

It leaves him both baffled and off-balance. And tonight, with the uneasy feeling that he needs to right this…quickly.

He doesn't risk touching her again. Instead, he studies the set of her jaw as he speaks. He's not used to feeling this vulnerable.

"Can you forgive me? I hope you can, because I honestly don't know how to live without you."

She doesn't look at him. Instead, she trains her eyes over his right shoulder. In the reflected light off her window pane, her skin shines porcelain; it astounds him to realize that at this moment, she's not the breakable one. "I don't know how to live without you either." He watches as her lips twitch slightly before giving way to a small smile. "I've done…crazy things. To keep you real. But throughout it all, someone else has been rescuing me."

He swallows, scrambling about mentally for a way--any way--to brace himself.

"I owe him…better…than this." Suddenly, her gaze shifts and she's looking directly at him. "Did you know Charlie tried to ship me off to Jacksonville?" He shakes his head. "Yeah." She releases a pent-up breath on a quick sigh. _"He's not coming back_, he told me." Edward winces. "And I knew that--I mean, I believed it. And yet I've waited for you for…five? Five months, and now? Edward, what's to say that tomorrow, you won't think it's in my best interests to leave again?"

"No. Never. Never again." How to make her understand? "Bella, while you were counting the months, I was counting the hours. Minutes, even. I couldn't track, I couldn't hunt, I couldn't function without you. Ask Alice. She's the only one I ever let see me. And that was only because she was going to see regardless. I could barely bother to change my clothes."

"I thought you were…" she shakes her head slightly as though to clear it. "Enjoying your distractions."

_"Ha."_ The word exits his mouth sharp and bitter. "There was nothing to distract me, Bella, just as I had never expected there to be."

*****

And just like that, Bella's world is imbalanced again. Edward cares too much--much, much more than makes sense--and she has nothing with which to reciprocate.

Except one thing. _The_ one thing Edward's always asked of her. _Time._

"I've already forgiven you," she answers slowly. "But I need to take this one day at a time. I need you to be here tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, Edward, before this is going to feel even vaguely real."

He nods, though she can't quite read his expression. It's closed off somehow, tense. Pained? _The only thing that can hurt me is you._ She suddenly wonders if this could actually be true.

He kisses her once on the forehead, then offers a smile that doesn't have her fooled. "I'm going to let my family know its safe to return, if that's alright with you?"

Alice. Carlisle. Esme. Emmett and Jasper. Even Rosalie. _Alright? Is he joking?_ "Of course."

He turns to leave through the window, then suddenly stops. As she watches, he counts out three careful steps, then pauses, bends, and smoothes one hand over the closest worn floorboard. In one graceful motion, he flips it up then reaches underneath.

"What are you--"

"I'll be back before morning," he says, and when he straightens, she can see what he's now holding.

"Oh!"

"In the meantime," he tells her, placing the stack of CDs and photos in her hands, "something to remember me by."


	8. Chapter 8

**Title:** A Single Hour  
**Author:** wrldpossibility  
**Fandom:** Twilight  
**Genre:** Canon until Bella's cliff dive in New Moon  
**Chapter:** 8/8  
**Characters:** Bella, Jacob, Edward, ensemble  
**Word Count: **1500  
**Summary:** Bella does not jump off the cliff. As may have been inevitable, Edward comes back to Forks on his own accord. What will he find when he gets there?  
**Author's Note:** Final chapter. It was fun to try my hand at Twilight fic, and I thank you all for reading it. No beta this time (I tend to prefer to go beta-less on final chapters), so forgive the inevitable errors.

**Chapter 8**

Bella weighs the memorabilia in her hands as carefully as though balancing gold on a scale.

Of course, she hardly needs to measure their worth.

All the same, she can't believe they've been here, right at her feet, all this time. She'd be angry if she weren't just so…grateful. The photo of herself and Edward--the one she'd so precisely folded in two--lies predominately on the top of the stack, someone--she can only assume Edward himself--having bent it backward upon its crease, forcing it flat. Her own uncertain smile stares up at her.

She barely recognizes this former self. Other photos now line her cork board: photos featuring real, full smiles and confident laughter. Photos with friends from her early days in Forks and older ones with Renee, but mostly photos with Jacob, taken with a wink by Billy at BBQs on the rez or by Charlie on the rare occasion he'd thought to pick up Bella's long-discarded camera.

Unrepentant matchmakers, the both of them. They were worse than teenage girls.

But were they really so far off-base? Did she blame her father for wanting to see her happy? Because she _was_, wasn't she? Rather, she _had_ been--or at least had _almost_ been…(was on her _way _to being?)--before returning home tonight to see Edward standing in her driveway.

Now? She's…not sure. She's definitely _herself_ again, and that's what counts. She's whole again…Bella sans the gaping hole to the chest.

A new wound is forming, of course, a raw ache blossoming further every time she thinks about Jake, but she's lived without sunshine before, and she can certainly do it again. If she can deny herself the Arizona heat, once considered as crucial to her survival as the air she breathes, then surely she can get by without sunny Jacob being central to her life.

If she can learn to love soggy Forks, she can acclimate to just about anything.

*****

Still: _she owes him better than this._

She lies awake, staring at her ceiling without blinking; she's been fighting this realization ever since Edward left her side to reconnect with his family. No, if she's honest with herself, ever since Jacob's last fleeting look in her direction before hightailing it for the trees. The digital display on her bedside clock reads 2:38 am when she finally succumbs: climbing out of bed, she finds her sweatpants, her shoes, and her coat and tiptoes down the hall.

The front door turns under her hand silently, and even her truck seems to comply with her stealth mission; the hinges squeak only moderately as she climbs into the cab. She freezes in place momentarily, listening, but Charlie must not have awoken. A minute later, she's rumbling down the highway toward La Push, warming her hands intermittently in front of the slowly-warming dashboard heater.

At the house, she doesn't bother to knock. What's the point of waking Billy? Besides, in her experience, werewolves almost always keep odd hours and rarely feel the need to lock up.

He must have heard her coming anyway, because by the time she creaks open his bedroom door, he's already opening it. She hadn't been expecting this, and for some reason, it brings her up short. She stares at him stupidly; she has time to register the fact that the paint is peeling on the jamb before he reaches out for her hand.

"Whatdaya doing? Come on. It's freezing."

He moves to pull her inside, and she lets him. Once in his bedroom, however--such a familiar, comforting place--she can't look him in the eye.

He stares at her for a moment while she trains her gaze just over his right shoulder to the single window on the opposite wall. "He says he's back for good." She's a bit surprised to hear herself get right to it, but after all, how much small talk is really required when the conversation in question begins after 3 am?

Jakes arms are folded across his bare chest. "And you're just going to run back to him."

"I'm going to try to make it work." _And this as well, Jake, unless you decide to make it impossible._

"Until he takes off again."

She forces herself to look at him--really look, straight into his eye--when she answers. She can tell he's encouraged by the fact that she can't dismiss this accusation as swiftly as she'd like. She sighs.

"Time will tell."

*****

Some days, Edward's certain all is forgiven, forgotten, and behind them.

Those are the days Bella spends at the Cullen house, sitting on the couch with her toes in Alice's lap, obediently enduring coats of glossy paint to her nails while Emmett watches a ball game on TV beside them or Esme flits here and there, changing the flowers in the vases or laying fabric swatches across drapes and upholstery, her head full of creative indecision. Or the days he can escape with Bella out-of-doors, to the woods or the meadow or even to Seattle for the day, where he watches her browse bookshops for hours on end.

Time.

This is an entity he has in ready supply. He doesn't begrudge her request for it. Of course, he wouldn't begrudge her request for anything.

They avoid the Swan residence…Edward out of respect for Charlie's wishes, Bella out of fear of Charlie's unrelenting rudeness. He'll give that time, as well.

Other days, he's not so sure their time apart hasn't caused lasting damage. Those are the days--or nights, rather--when he awakens Bella from her still-persistent nightmares. Or the small moments and the smaller movements and expressions that a human might miss: a momentary shadow across Bella's face, a slight uncertainty in her tone, a pain that flashes briefly in her eyes, letting him know when she's thinking of those months he was gone.

Then there are the days she opts to spend in La Push. Those are the hardest to take. Her thoughts on Jacob remain as frustratingly opaque as ever, the wolves continue to block Alice's visions, and the hours sit rock-solid heavy in the pit of his stomach. Only then, as the minutes creep by, does he allow Alice to assure him it's as good as done…only then does he humor her vision of Bella with him, _like_ him, forever.

*****

As the months go by, that single day of that ill-fated hour when Edward had led Bella through the trees only to drop her like a stone--to leave her for her own good--becomes more and more distant in her memory. Perhaps, her mind truly is like a sieve.

She's able to chalk it up to temporary insanity; it becomes almost a comfort to her to know that even century-old vampires make astounding mistakes in judgment. Of course, it doesn't hurt that he tells her this every day: that he was wrong, horribly wrong, and that he's the fastest learner she'll ever know. In other words, he won't make the same mistake twice.

She believes him.

She also believes Charlie, when he says he only wants what's best for her, and Jacob, when he reminds her that _he_ is the one who knows her best…the one who not only loves the whole, but knows how--when necessary--to fit the pieces back together.

It's true. And no amount of time will make her forget what he'd done for her, or what he's offering still. She tries to explain how she can justify her choice of Edward in terms he'll understand:

"Maybe," she suggests one mild summer evening, "we all imprint. Maybe it's just another definition of falling in love."

He scoffs, sitting down beside her on his front step. He stares out toward the unattached garage. "It's rare, Bella. By very definition, it doesn't happen often."

She follows his gaze, squinting into the setting sun. "Exactly."

*****

Sometime around August, Bella's suddenly back in a rush. _Time_ takes on a new, more urgent meaning, and all her talk of being changed--so long on hold--is back again...with a vengeance. Every night, she asks Edward anew, threading her fingers through his in a way that both fills his heart and leaves it aching. Her request carries with it both a thrill of promise and a harsh reminder of his past unwillingness.

The thing is, he's not so unwilling now. In fact, he can't quite remember what made him so afraid to take this step. Human experiences? She could have a lifetime of them and it wouldn't be enough for Edward. Her soul? Intact and always would be. He's certain of that now.

Beside him in her bed, she shifts, one arm settling across his chest, her other hand tucked under her chin. She sighs in her sleep, somehow both woman and girl in the same breath.

She's ready for forever to begin…

and he doesn't know what he's waiting for.


End file.
